Matlab r2020a becomes extremely laggy after several hours

Hello All,

Within the past month I have come across an issue where matlab becomes extremely laggy (i.e. taking >30 sec to switch between command window and editor, push buttons, typing in the command window, basically everything else too). I have a code that I wrote back in 2019 and have been working with it weekly since then no problem, but within the last month this issue has started to occur. I have found several ways of fixing the issue but non of them work 100% of the time:

1. A simple 'clear all' in the command line works sometimes

2. Closing and rebooting matlab will occationally work

3. Some times i have to restart my entire laptop

4. if all else fails, I perform all prior steps again and leave it for several hourse; eventually it resolves itself.

The code I am working with is approx. 1000 lines long and should have plenty of memory space/ cpu power. I am running matlab on my 2019 macbook pro (i9 2.3 ghz 8-core, 32 gb of ram). I have been working with it for 2 years now and memory requirments can be as low as several mb to several gb; prior to a month ago I had no problems regardless of size. I have even set the working directory to a folder containing only this script, but this does not solve my issue. Does anyone have suggestions on how to diagnos and resolve the problem?

Thanks ahead of time!

Sincerely,

Brennen

[Adam Danz]

Are you using any remote network drives?

[Yongjian Feng]

Check your memory/CPU usage?

[john carr]

Hey guys, thanks for the quick responses!

@Adam Danz I am not using any remote drives.

@Yongjian Feng I will double check the usage next time the issue occurs. I just tried to force the issue by test a large case of my code and the memory usage didn't exceed 2gb and I still had 20gb free.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

If you are using any window management program such as Magnet, then disable that or configure MATLAB to be excluded.

If you have programs marked as accepted in the Accessibility area of Security preferences then experiment with deauthorizing them, as some of Accessibility actions do not get along well with MATLAB.

For example I have some mouse and camera and game controllers enabled in Accessibility, and I have not had any problems with those myself but similar items are affecting other people (but window management is a much more common cause)

[john carr]

Ah interesting, I will do some more investigating but I did buy a steelseries rival 3 wireless mouse about the same time these issues started occuring. Maybe thats the problem.

Thanks for your advice!

[john carr]

After a day of use I still havent expereinced the issue since uninstalling the steel series engine from my computer. Hopefully that was the issue, just wanted to make sure to accept your answer. Will update later if anything else arise.

Thanks so much!

[Yongjian Feng]

Does it man Apple Magic Mouse is the only choice? :-)

[Walter Roberson]

@Yongjian Feng

I personally have not had problems with any mice. I have, within the last year, at various times used all of these on an iMac:

• older logitech (before they went Unified)
• logitech MX Ergo (the one with thumb-ball)
• Apple Magic (not much, I don't like that one)
• Raspberry Pi mouse (it does the job)
• Kensington Trackball (very nice for everything that does not need a lot of middle-scroll; I use this a lot)
• Steam Controller (using it as a mouse is a bit of a nuisance, but it is sometimes the only thing I can get to work when the various dongles and the Bluetooth mice are not being recognized)

On the other hand, the only unusual things I have connected to my iMacs (other than the trackball and the Steam Controller), is a Thunderbolt multi-bay drive enclosure.

[john carr]

It may just be steel series related. Their engine currently has some bugs with Mac Big Sur that doesn’t allow the two side buttons to work without third party software. Maybe there’s some other bug in there that interacts with matlab.

Good to know your Logitech mouse didn’t cause issue! I just went and bought one to replace my steel series mouse haha.

[Walter Roberson]

I cannot recommend the Logitech MX Ergo

The thumb trackball works, but thumbs do not give much precision, so the trackball is okay for gross movements across the screen, but not for pointing to particular locations.

(Or at least my thumb does not give much precision.)

The Kensington Wireless Trackball is much better for constant use (but could be better for middle-scroll, so needs improvement for games that rely on middle scroll, such as for throwing and retrieving ropes.)

[john carr]

Ah good to know, I ended up going with the logitech lightspeed gaming mouse. Hopefully this one wont interact with matlab, seems that your experience is a positive sign for logitech mice though.

Thanks again!